


Garroter

by unrivaled_tapestry



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst With A Neutral Ending, Attempted Murder, Future Ferdibert if you squint, Gen, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Time Skip, aka Hubert almost makes a mistake that he spends the rest of his life glad he didn't make, pretty dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:22:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22490746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unrivaled_tapestry/pseuds/unrivaled_tapestry
Summary: Ferdinand leaves a note asking for advice. Hubert becomes convinced Edelgard has a future traitor at her back. He decides to deal with Ferdinand before sedition can ever become a problem. His hand hasn't faltered in years. Why would it start now?Or: Hubert plans to kill Ferdinand while they are both students.
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir & Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 27
Kudos: 164





	Garroter

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [GoldenThreads](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenThreads/) who did a truly fantastic job 1) beta'ing for this fic, and 2) convincing me it wasn't too messed up to write in the first place.

Garreg Mach buzzed with anxiety following the news of Flayn’s disappearance, and Hubert kept a detached distance from the Black Eagle’s search for her. His efforts to stay as low-key as possible often led him to wanderings around the monastery, ostensibly to take in the air, and more practically to observe the patterns and habits of those around him. To learn when Dimitri tended to take lunch. To learn that Hilda had a hitch in her shoulder from an old sporting injury. To learn that Ferdinand always came to the abbey in the evening after visiting his beast in the stables.

It was such a wandering that brought him, wide-eyed, to the response wall for the month’s anonymous letters from students seeking advice. He generally did his best to avoid the cathedral; his dark magic was always dampened as soon as he crossed the threshold, which naturally put him on edge, but information gathering came naturally to him, and sometimes people thought anonymity allowed them to bring down their guard.

His attention bored into one letter. If he hadn’t been in a place of faith, the spike of rage he felt surely would have combusted it into black flames.

…

_ There are many citizens of the Empire who are currently in despair. I think it’s time for a change in leadership. Perhaps someone new should ascend the throne. _

…

_ You would do well as a ruler, Ferdinand. _

_ Professor Byleth _

__

…

Just like the Professor, he’d recognize that messy, looping script anywhere. Ferdinand.

Ferdinand, next in line to become Prime Minister. Ferdinand von Aegir, son of Duke Aegir, traitor, coward, and child murderer.

Openly seeking support for sedition.

Hubert’s jaw ached with how tightly he clenched his teeth.

He rapidly suppressed the urge to rip the letter off the wall and crumple it up. Over the course of several long breaths his anger cooled into a roiling boil under his ribs, and his fingers itched for steel. Pinning his hands behind his back and turning on his heels, Hubert made for his quarters.

Ferdinand’s quest to surpass Edelgard would almost be endearing if it wasn’t futile—though embarrassing most of the time, Hubert did occasionally find it amusing to watch the scion of House Aegir struggle against an heir with two crests, like trying to watch a squirrel move a wheelbarrow with no understanding of its size or machinations. He tolerated the boasting, the showing off, the inattention to detail and foolhardy exuberance in His Lady’s presence. He’d hoped that, like a mongrel dog, repeated failures would teach Ferdinand his place. Still he came back, still he made everything a competition. By all appearances a fool, it now appeared likely that he merely tested Edelgard’s defenses.

At eighteen, it was entertainment. At twenty-five it could be a knife in the back.

If Hubert had any doubts about what Ferdinand aimed to grow into, the letter he’d sent to the professors for advice made his aspirations and intent clear.

The baiting, sniping, and games were over. Hubert had to act now, well before Ferdinand could become a true threat to Edelgard.

What he had to do to protect her was clear, whether she understood right away or not. No matter what Ferdinand could be as an eventual ally, his potential harm as Edelgard’s primary political rival far outweighed it. In time, she would appreciate the removal of a complication. Hubert regretted not arranging a battlefield accident for Ferdinand when they’d suppressed Lord Lonato’s rebellion—the mist provided the perfect cover and would have made less work for him now.

However, with Flayn’s disappearance and the Black Eagle house investigating, death was in the air. It would make sense that one of the Professor’s students merely came too close to the truth. The Death Knight—or Jeritza, depending on how badly he ended up burning his cover—would instantly become the prime suspect in Ferdinand’s murder.

He rifled through his footlocker until he found the false compartment at the bottom. A wooden box waited for him as he pulled the green velvet base aside and removed it.

Steadily, his throat still tight with rage, he mechanically fingered each object. One by one, he removed the tools of his trade and laid them out for examination. On the lid of his closed locker, he placed vials next to wickedly curved knives, and blades alongside other items of death. He methodically laid out numerous instruments, each with their purposes, and each in their place. Like he was. Like Ferdinand should have been.

Knives were too messy for Garreg Mach—if even a little blood got on him, his plan to frame the Death Knight would be for nothing and Edelgard would be down not only an eventual problem but a retainer. The same was true of his magic; Rhea’s inquisitors would identify it in a second.

That left poison—a safe standby for him—or something less bloody than a blade.

After careful consideration, Hubert collected the steel garrote coiled up like a snake on the wool blanket. It would be cleaner than a knife, and not so unique that he couldn’t deposit it with the body when he was done, leaving nothing to trace back to him. Although he took no joy in his work, the thought of smothering the words in that treasonous braggart’s throat had a year’s worth of irritation fueling it.

With a snap, he pulled the wire taut between his hands and let it bite into his gloved knuckles until fury faded into resolve.

No more guesswork. No more second chances. He would kill Ferdinand von Aegir and be done with it.

He spent the next two days tracking Ferdinand’s movements. His route to and from lectures was too conspicuous. However, the path he took in the afternoon to the stables left him nearly completely isolated for long stretches. Usually he travelled through the hedges and gardens, sometimes stopping to evaluate the flowers.

On especially sunny days he took a meandering detour down by the fishing pond, and Hubert did see opportunity there—a sleeping draught and an unlucky fall was tempting. He wouldn’t need to frame anyone if it looked like an accident. But as he pursued the plan more actively, he scrapped it nearly immediately. The timing would be too difficult, even for him. Nor could he identify the uneasy feeling that settled in his stomach at the thought of simply laying a sleeping Ferdinand under the water.

The gardens posed his best opportunity. Hubert planned to use the hedges for cover and dump Ferdinand’s body in with the compost. Likely, the discovery wouldn’t be made until the end of the week when someone came to discard pulled weeds. It would be neat. Clean.

Over.

He waited, ready for Ferdinand to pass him unsuspectingly. While Hubert watched the light die, he concerned himself with a cluster of red flowers. They weren’t his favorites, but he knew them to be Edelgard’s. There wasn’t much to do to pass the time—so he evaluated them, smelled their sweet scent while his quarry stumbled towards him.

As expected, Ferdinand came clodding along just as the sun set beyond the distant mountains and the dinner bell rang.

He took big, confident strides, moving so quickly past the hedge that he didn’t even notice Hubert’s presence. As he walked, Hubert quietly slid behind him, doing his best to blend with the shadows of Garreg Mach as one of the last clear sunsets of winter framed Ferdinand from the front. His boots were so loud he made Hubert seem all the quieter, and a part of Hubert almost wished Ferdinand would whirl around and see him there. Instead, his focus remained totally set on the stables, and on the crystal-clear song he whistled.

Now was the time to strike.

Hubert sped up his steps by two paces, the wire unfolding gently at his side before he strung it between his hands. All he had to do was wrap it around that arrogant throat twice and squeeze before he could scream, and the deed would be done.

And then he didn’t.

At the last moment, Hubert hastily ducked behind another hedge.

As he did so, he sloppily kicked the edge of the walkway. Ferdinand’s whistling abruptly ceased. His footsteps faltered and he came to a stop. Hubert cursed himself as he imagined Ferdinand glancing behind himself, wondering if he’d imagined the sound of a boot scraping a piece of gravel against stone.

Hubert left the area as quickly as he could, his heart thundering and his academy uniform growing sweaty around him as he stuffed the length of wire back into his pocket.

He spent hours cursing himself for his weakness, for faltering when Ferdinand would have expected it least. He hadn’t hesitated to kill since he was fifteen and saw no reason why he would start again now. He’d killed embezzlers on evening walks. Would-be mutineers as they settled in at their favorite Enbarr brothels. He’d dumped the bodies of counterfeiters into rivers while they fished.

After calm consideration, he decided that if his instincts told him it wasn’t the right time, then it wasn’t the right time. The area left him too exposed, the chance of discovery too great if Ferdinand so much as cried out. He needed a more remote option.

Besides, he had to acknowledge he’d felt a twinge of regret settle into him. Ferdinand had sounded so happy, and Hubert had, in that moment, decided he was not in so much of a rush that he couldn’t let Ferdinand do something he loved. Some men requested a smoke; Ferdinand would get to muck the stables one last time on the day Hubert followed through. That was his concession.

Hubert went to bed that night without dinner and spent a sleepless night winding around the nasty twist in his gut.

Next, Hubert decided he would kill Ferdinand as he headed to the cathedral, as he usually did later in the week. He’d killed men on their way to pray before, and already this idea had a more familiar cadence to it.

It would be a bit trickier in some ways, as the open area around the bridge left him much more exposed than he would like. The Garreg Mach guards, usually complacent to the point of incompetence, were on their highest alert. However, Hubert thought he could dispatch Ferdinand and drop him over the side of the bridge to the river below if visibility was poor enough. It often was by the time Ferdinand made his way to the goddess. Even if Ferdinand cried out as he was being murdered, it would be lost in the wind.

Murdered.

Some sweat collected under his collar. Flames, it sounded so crass when he thought of it that way.

Hubert reminded himself he would never get a better chance.

Hubert followed Ferdinand through the corridors leading to the bridge. He stalked with purpose and took great care not to let anyone see him following the Aegir heir. Ferdinand made this easy by taking a kind of meandering, lazy gait, almost more interested in the stonework than he was in going to the abbey. No whistling this time, a fact for which Hubert was strangely grateful.

Hubert hung back by the enormous double doors and waited for a handful of other students to pass before finally following Ferdinand outside.

Cool night air greeted him as he stepped onto the bridge, as silvery as a tapestry of St. Seiros’ cloaks. Cloud cover made it as dark as the start of a new month, but occasionally they slipped away to reveal a brilliant full moon. The kind hunters moved by.

Ferdinand waited halfway across the bridge, his hands on the railing as he looked out at the chasm between the cathedral tower and the monastery proper. He seemed far away, with his mouth set in a troubled line. This was unusual enough to give Hubert pause, as he was used to Ferdinand being cheerful to the point where he found it deeply, personally irritating.

Hubert came up beside him, and he could see Ferdinand’s hair shining in the moonlight. Internally, Hubert swore. He needed less than a minute of absolute darkness to accomplish his goal. All he had to do was keep Ferdinand on the bridge long enough for a cloud to cover the moon.

“Why,” he started, “Ferdinand, you look so troubled.”

Ferdinand jumped and whirled to face him, his eyes wide with surprise. “Hubert, by the goddess, you scared the life out of me.”

“Hm.” The tip of Hubert’s glove slid over the coil of wire in his pocket. “We can’t have that.”

Ferdinand went back to gazing out off the bridge. Beneath Hubert’s glove, his hand twitched. He didn’t make a habit of talking to his targets beforehand; that practice led to such unhelpful vices as mercy.

“I was merely asking after you,” Hubert said, keeping his voice even.

“Why?” Ferdinand asked, raising an eyebrow. “You never have before.”

“Am I not allowed to be concerned about my classmate?” Hubert said. “There seems to be a conspiracy about, and any one of the Black Eagles could make the culprit’s next target.”

Ferdinand made a dismissive noise. “I do not know what the kidnapper would want with me.”

That got Hubert’s attention. Overhead, a cloud slid over the moon, but curiosity stayed his hand. “I sense that you’re not thinking about Flayn when you say that.”

Almost petulantly, Ferdinand laid his elbows on the railing of the bridge and placed his chin on the backs of his folded hands.

“I am worried for her, but I suppose I am caught up in my own troubles tonight—there was a letter from my father waiting in my room, you see.” He shook his head, his mouth curled into a frown as the moon revealed itself once more. “I imagine you would agree with what he had to say.”

At the mention of Duke Aegir, Hubert felt another hot spike of anger that reminded him of his purpose.

“Perhaps I would,” Hubert admitted, taking the opportunity to take a step closer. “But I’m bored tonight, and a decent listener if you wish to share.”

“He heard about the hymn sing I led last month. He said I was to stop embarrassing the family with  _ such things _ ,” Ferdinand spat out, not looking in Hubert’s direction. Even in the moonlight, Hubert saw the tips of his ears burning. “He does this, sometimes, after bad days. Gets into moods where he breaks out the port and starts writing.” He swallowed. “I will write back and he will be fine by his next letter.”

Hubert stared back. The unspooled garrote rested against his knee. He looked for his normal response to Ferdinand, the cruel ones he kept on hand just in case things started to feel like they were getting too chummy. They all died in his throat. He knew Duke Aegir was not an especially beloved father, but it still took him aback to hear the sadness in Ferdinand’s voice.

“It may be true; he may find you embarrassing. I certainly do. But not for  _ singing _ . It feels…innocuous enough. Even for the noble standard.” Hubert ran his fingers over the wire, his throat going dry as he spoke. “For what it’s worth, I do not hold the opinion of Duke Aegir very highly, and I don’t think you should either.”

Ferdinand’s mouth opened, and Hubert expected a spirited defense of his father, one that would make it easy to silence him forever. “You are not wrong. He is a vile, greedy, cruel man.”

Hubert furrowed his brows. This wasn’t how he wanted or expected this conversation to go, and something cold crept up his spine. “It’s natural to want a parent’s approval.”

“If I am being honest, I do not even want that,” Ferdinand said, his fingers lightly drumming on the stone railing. “I merely want to have a couple things for myself.”

Hubert leaned against the railing, his gaze instinctively falling to the bridge. “I can appreciate that.”

“What do you do for yourself?” Ferdinand asked. “It seems your focus is…exclusively on Edelgard.”

“Is that so wrong?” A dark edge crept back into his voice, reminding him of his intent. This had gone on long enough. A part of Hubert begged Ferdinand to make this job easier, to attempt to bribe him, or pull him into the employ of House Aegir. Something, anything that left Hubert as sure of his eventual treason as he’d been while staring at Ferdinand’s damned note.

“No, not at all,” Ferdinand said. “I do think you are a sycophant, mind you, but I find your loyalty quite admirable.”

“Lady Edelgard indulges few things that won’t eventually serve her as emperor,” Hubert said, and the part of his mind screaming at him to finish the job nearly had a fit. “I do know she…cares for art, though never shares it with anyone.”

Ferdinand raised an eyebrow, whirling around to face Hubert, who quickly needed to hide his hand again. “Edelgard is an artist? And she does not even share it with you?”

“Does that amuse you?”

Ferdinand’s eyebrows knit in concern. “No, of course not. It does make her seem more human, though.”

A cloud flew over the moon. The time was now. Hubert steeled himself, silenced the part of his mind screaming at him to act, and smothered the nausea rising in his throat. He was no amateur, and this wasn’t personal anymore. Deftly he wound the wire between his fists, until it was so tight he wondered if there would be red showing through his gloves when he was done.

When he spoke, his voice sounded like it came from the very bottom of an inky pit in the ground. “You should be able to sing all you want.”

“…Thank you, Hubert.” Ferdinand’s voice crackled a little, as if it was hard to say.

He turned to face Ferdinand, in a second, his hands would move like biting snakes.

He wasn’t ready for the hand Ferdinand raised to the back of his neck, or the quick, kind kiss Ferdinand planted on his cheek.

Hubert thought he heard glass shattering somewhere. He froze on the bridge, his mind going blank as the moon appeared out from behind the clouds. He was barely able to untangle his hand and hide the coal-coated steel behind him.

He gasped, his cheeks flushing with anger and surprise—anger at himself, and surprise at Ferdinand.

Next to him, Ferdinand seemed to realize what he’d done. His mouth went agape, and worst of all he began apologizing. “I…I’m sorry, Hubert. That—I don’t know…I did not mean to. I just…”

“You have misread the situation.” Hubert slowly began to back away from him. His heart thundering like it hadn’t since his very first kill. Maddeningly, he wanted to apologize to Ferdinand. “Good evening, von Aegir.”

He left Ferdinand on the bridge, very much alive and staring hopelessly after him as Hubert’s body threatened to revolt in three different kinds of illness. As the clouds slid over the moon again, he dropped his garrote over the side of the bridge. He watched the dark gossamer thread fall into the abyss, and was comforted with the knowledge that he could never use it again. It required him to get too close, too personal.

After returning to his room, Hubert replaced his box of weapons and poisons, sliding them carefully back into the lining of his locker. His hands shook like a child’s, and he hovered at the foot of his bed with his spine curled downwards and his hands beating on the floorboards.

So deep was the sickness in his gut—the shame from all directions—that he did not attend lectures the following day. There would be whispers about it. Famously, he came to class even when sick. Hopefully, the Professor would just assume he’d burned out and leave it at that. He didn’t think he could handle people asking after him.

His nightmare came to fruition when Edelgard softly knocked on his door. He very nearly let her in to confess the whole ordeal to her, but what could he possibly say? Edelgard would, doubtlessly, be angry, and he would deserve it. She’d reprimanded him previously for his actions around Ferdinand—for the snide remarks and teasing—he couldn’t bring himself to admit that he’d almost violated her wishes so blatantly and permanently.

In addition to Ferdinand’s constant attempts to compete with her, other things came to mind as Hubert sat alone in his room. The rare occasion Ferdinand made Edelgard laugh, for instance, or the time he’d ridden to her defense on the field of battle without thought for his own safety. She had thus far refused to put him on any kind of list for removal. He’d thought as far as the deed and the eventual safety that would leave her in—now he thought of the immediate aftermath, the possibility that Edelgard may even  _ grieve _ .

She gave up quickly. For as entwined as he and Edelgard were, they both had their spaces and respected them. He was never more grateful for that understanding than he was right then.

Things remained blissfully quiet until the afternoon, when the soft whisper of paper sliding across his wood floor got Hubert’s attention, followed by quick footsteps in the hallway. He rose from his bed to find a cream-colored envelope under his door. The name ‘Hubert’ had been hastily scrawled on the outside by someone prone to extravagant looping in the tails of his letters.

…

_ Dear Hubert, _

_ I wanted to apologize for my actions on the bridge last night. What I did was entirely uncalled for, and I find myself asking for your forgiveness. _

_ I know we have had our disagreements. For the sake of pride, I will say that I am sure your words pained you. However, they were still very meaningful to me. I believe I will continue to lead the hymn sing whenever I am given the opportunity. _

_ I hope things will not be too different. _

__

_ Sincerely, _

_ Ferdinand _

…

Hubert wanted to crumple the paper, to tear the note to pieces, and then burn the pieces, as if he could destroy Ferdinand in effigy, at least.

Instead, he folded it into quarters with shaking hands before placing it under the green velvet of his locker.


End file.
